Meet Barbara

Barbara Remick, Jewelry Artist

I feel so fortunate to have been born and raised in Santa Barbara, California. I am the daughter of two artists and I learned to fabricate sterling silver jewelry while attending Santa Barbara High School in the 70’s. My skills provided a way to make a little spending money through my college years. While attending UC Santa Barbara as an art student, I spent many hours in the ceramics lab, ending up with a degree emphasis in ceramics. I was able to learn art theory and fundamentals of design and am able apply them to my jewelry making today.

After college, life’s challenges and responsibilities took over and I eventually put the tools away. They sat in dusty boxes, moving from place to place with me and luckily, never ending up in my annual yard sale. I knew that one day I’d free them from their confined space to once again be used to turn metal and stone into wearable works of art.

In 2009 I broke out the old tools and started brushing up on my fabrication skills, making a few simple pieces. An art teacher at the school where I worked, gave me a dried up piece of precious metal clay, and after re-hydrating it and torch firing my first piece, I knew I had found my new passion. My love of ceramics and metal fabrication had found a perfect union with metal clay!

Unquenchable in my desire to create jewelry again, Sweet Cedar Jewelry Design was born in the spring of 2010. I set up Dad’s pride and joy, a desk that his dad made for him, for my new jeweler’s bench. Dad and Grandpa would be overjoyed to see me using this fabulously functional piece of furniture, which Grandpa made by hand for his son. Grandpa was very talented with his hands and loved using tools, like me. 😉

Cedar and Clover on Convict Lake

So, you might be wondering about my line of dog lover’s jewelry. As a dog agility enthusiast for over ten years, I became acquainted with lots of dog lovers and they began ordering necklaces with their dog’s name stamped in fine silver. It was a hit and I still visit my friends at agility shows with my latest dog theme pieces. Oh, btw, Sweet Cedar is the name of one of my beautiful Black Labradors. Clover, her little sister, also a Black Lab, is the crazy one and I decided that Crazy Clover would not be quite fitting for a jewelry business. Woof.